RE: Evaluation checklist - monitoring s/w - LONG

Dear Sean

"We are currently NT bound, but there might be a possibility of Unix introduced too"

You removed the essence from your kaphy (coffee)

Rao

--

On Mon, 18 Dec 2000 08:06:28  
 Mark Leith wrote:


>Hi Sean,

>

>Being from a sales oriented background, and having had to deal with

>countless evaluations of these very tools, I feel my insight may be of

>benefit.

>

>To be fair, every tool should be tested on the exact same environment,

>without another tool running along side it at the same time as tests. They

>can conflict, and cause each other to perform "badly". The tool must be

>graphically easy to use, and have a relatively low learning curve.

>

>Depending on the level of monitoring, you may also want to have a background

>agent monitoring you databases without a GUI open at all times. If this is

>the case, what platforms will this agent support? You say you may move in to

>UNIX, so plan for the future, and add this in to your checklist. Typically

>you will find that the major players - Sun, AIX, DEC, HP, NT, LINUX, are

>almost always supported now, but there are some tools out there that need a

>specific platform already in place to be able to use the tool (Foglight -

>Quest - needs a dedicated Solaris system to run its Server on)

>

>I would include these background agents as a must have if you are planning

>to monitor real business critical systems. They will ensure that the

>databases are being constantly monitored at all times. There are a number of

>tools where the front end client just connects via SQL*Net/Net8, and

>monitors in a kind of diagnostic mode. The question you then have to ask is,

>what happens if this PC is shutdown for the weekend etc..

>

>Now from background experience, here is my list of must, useful, and nice to

>have options. I would also have to add that as minimum requirement a tool

>should be able to monitor this information both re & pro actively.

>

>MUST HAVE

>

>1) Space Issues

>

>	Tablespace - 	Space allocated.

>				Free Space.

>

>	Tables -		Space Allocated.

>				Unused space at block level.

>				Proximity to max extents.

>

>	Indexes - 		Space Allocated.

>				Unused space at block level.

>				Proximity to max extents.

>

>	RBS - 		High Water Mark.

>				Shrinks.

>				Extends.

>				Wraps.

>

>	Archive/Error Log Space.

>	Space Bound Objects.

>

>2) Database Usage

>

>	Sessions - 		Number of Sessions

>				CPU Usage per

>				I/O Per

>				Identifier - SID/PID/Terminal/User name

>				Current SQL

>				Locks / Blocking

>				Sorts - memory/disk

>  				Transactions per second

>				Average Transaction time

>

>	Memory - 		SGA memory allocation

>				Block Buffer Cache

>				Buffer hit ratios

>				Shared Pool

>				Redo Log buffer cache

>				SQL Area - monitoring for resource intensive SQL.

>				Data Dictionary Cache Miss %

>				Library Cache Hit %

>

>

>	I/0 - 		Datafile Physical I/O

>				Logical I/O

>

>3) Alerting

>

>	The tool should be able to alert on any problems with the previous areas of

>interest.

>	You should be able to set up a reasonable time schedule of where and when

>to alert  	certain people. If you are a 24x7 shop, you may need to send out

>of hours alerts to a 	pager, or maybe SMS to you mobile phone.

>

>	Can the tool send a corrective SQL/OS script to fix the problem? How

>flexible are the 	event/alert functions? Can I write my own? Do I need a

>"specialist" contractor to come  	set these up for me?

>

>	Alert on new error log message.

>	Instance Down

>

>USEFUL

>

>1) Historical Information

>

>	Many tools will store a repository of performance information. It may be

>useful to set  	up criteria on any information you may need to pull up about

>past usage of Oracle - 	transactions per minute/hour.

>

>	You can also use the historical information for things such as capacity

>planning and 	so on.

>

>2) MTS information

>

>	Dispatcher counts

>	Queue Length

>	Waits

>	Percent Busy

>	Requests

>

>3) Replication monitoring

>

>	Broken Jobs

>	Replication validation

>

>

>4) Parameter information.

>

>	INIT file parameters, for quick reference.

>

>5) Log switching.

>

>

>NICE

>

>1) O/S Monitoring

>

>	Many, many people when evaluating Oracle performance tools, also want to

>have the 	functionality to monitor O/S statistics as well. Things such as

>overall CPU usage, 	I/O, process information, active jobs etc. Whilst all co

>uld arguably be of great use 	to a DBA, most tools will not have this

>functionality. A useful thing to find out is 	if the vendor doe actually

>supply these kinds of tools, and if so, how well 	integrated are they?

>

>2) An E-DBA

>

>	Wouldn't it be nice for a performance tool to alert, fix, diagnose future

>performance 	problems, fix them before they happen, then open your CD drive

>to rest your plastic 	coffee mug in to? Hmm.. that would be nice from a

>tool..

>

>3) Tips - There are some tools out there that will give hints on performance

>problems, and 	maybe tips on how to fix these problems. Sometimes these can

>be a little out of whack, 	but many are extremely helpful for diagnosing

>problems on the fly, as they draw your 	attention.

>

>4) A good help file!

>

>

>Have I bored you enough? I'll quickly say - Licensing can vary between the

>different vendors, there are some out there that license per instance, some

>per server, and a rare few that license per DBA client irrespective of how

>many instances they touch. Depending on the number of servers and number of

>instances per server, this can make the costs vary extensively! I heard

>recently that Quest were trying to charge on the criticality of a system!

>

>Maintenance is usually around the 18-20% of the full license cost. If you

>get a discount on the full license, you will sometimes still have to pay 20%

>of the LIST PRICE license cost though, regardless of discount!

>

>Maintenance should cover full 24x7 support, with all upgrades included. It's

>usually a good idea to go over all agreements to double check for yourself

>on any possible areas of concern.

>

>Right, I'm off for a coffee now, but before I go -

>

><Shameless Plug>

>

>We have a tool that you may want to take a look at! If you are interested,

>contact me away from the list, and I will get all of the information over to

>you. You may/may not have heard of it. A hell of a lot of people haven't

>which really does surprise me! Mostly just due to the vendors poor marketing

>strategy though! The tool is cool though! It's called DBGeneral, shortly

>rebadging under the name of NORAD! This is to bring it in to line with a new

>O/S, App monitoring tool being released on the 15th of Jan.

>

>Shameless Plug/>

>

>Right, mines black with 3 sugars please..

>

>Regards

>

>Mark Leith

>Cool Tools UK Ltd

>

>Tel: 01905 330 281

>email: mark_at_cool-tools.co.uk

>

>---snip---

>

>Hi Folks,

>

>Early next year I'm planning to evaluate and select Oracle DB monitoring

>s/w.  We are currently NT bound, but there might be a possibility of Unix

>introduced too.  Anyhow, to help select the monitoring software I am

>planning to put together an evaluation checklist to try and objectively

>compare the various offerings out there.  I'd appreciate it if you would let

>me know what features you think a monitoring package should have, e.g. in

>categories, "must have", "useful to have", "nice to have" (if you can afford

>it???).  It would be also useful to hear feedback from you folk who already

>have such software on other factors such as, support level, costs (licences,

>annual maintenance), or even such aspirations as "looking back what I should

>have gone for was", or "but nowadays the xxxx package does this and more".

>

>In return for your time and feedback I'll publish the evaluation sheet to

>members of the list for everyone to use if they choose to do so.

>

>Oh! and of course if there is already an evaluation sheet in existence that

>folk know of, I'll cut to the chase there ;)

>

>Sean :)

>

>

>-- 

>Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com

>-- 

>Author: Mark Leith

>  INET: mark_at_cool-tools.co.uk

>

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